Missing diver's body recovered off Provincetown

Thursday

May 26, 2011 at 2:00 AMMay 26, 2011 at 6:22 AM

PROVINCETOWN — In the log that boat owner John Baldwin keeps onboard the Chase, he wrote that Sean Strakele entered the water off Hatches Harbor at 6:03 a.m. Monday. But there's no entry in the log for when Strakele came out.

MARY ANN BRAGG

PROVINCETOWN — In the log that boat owner John Baldwin keeps onboard the Chase, he wrote that Sean Strakele entered the water off Hatches Harbor at 6:03 a.m. Monday. But there's no entry in the log for when Strakele came out.

"I stopped seeing the bubbles," Baldwin said Wednesday afternoon at MacMillan Pier, referring to bubbles that rise to the surface as a scuba diver breathes. Particularly for freewheeling lobster divers who dart here and there to catch their prey, it's the bubbles that signal to those on the surface that all is OK below.

State police divers recovered Strakele's body at around 10:30 a.m. Wednesday in 56 feet of water, Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael O'Keefe said. A fellow lobster diver, Michael Packard of Provincetown, found the body at around 6:50 a.m. He marked the location then contacted the Coast Guard.

Strakele's body was still wearing the diving weight belt, Packard said. Usually, a diver in trouble would release the belt and shoot to the surface. Also, Packard found the body only about 100 yards from where Strakele went down, he said.

"I think it happened pretty quickly," he said Wednesday by phone. "Whatever happened, he wasn't able to react."

The Coast Guard is investigating the incident and interviewed Baldwin on Wednesday. The results of the investigation could take as long as two months, a Coast Guard spokesman said.

Monday's venture with Baldwin at the helm and Strakele in the water was meant to be the beginning of a summer of making money from lobster sales.

Strakele, 37, worked as a chef at Napi's Restaurant in Provincetown and bartended at the Governor Bradford Restaurant in the summers. A friend said Strakele had begun diving locally within the past year. He grew up in Eastham and graduated from Nauset Regional High School.

Baldwin is one of about a half-dozen commercial lobster divers working from MacMillan Pier. Last year, he dove for lobsters while Strakele manned the boat and served as the "bubble watcher." But Baldwin broke his tooth in a bike accident and can't dive, so they switched places this year.

On Friday, the two took a test run, with Baldwin manning the boat and Strakele diving.

That 30-minute dive went smoothly enough, Baldwin said.

"This was our first real time," he said of Monday's dive.

On Monday, Baldwin dropped Strakele on an underwater shelf commonly used by local lobster divers. The shelf is about 25 to 30 feet down, with two dozen ceramic tanks and toilets, called "old piles" in the log, that attract lobsters, Baldwin said. The shelf's depth also drops suddenly to about 50 feet.

The shelf extends about a quarter to a half-mile out from the shoreline at Hatches Harbor.

"It was rough near where I put him down," Baldwin said. "I put him on the top of the bank."

Strakele was clad in a wet suit and the weight belt, and he also wore a buoyancy jacket, which can be inflated to help bring a diver to the surface, Baldwin said.

When he lost sight of the bubbles, Baldwin said he didn't worry immediately because it is somewhat common, particularly in rough waters. "I assumed things were all right," he said. They had an agreement that Strakele would surface in an area just before the currents get particularly tricky.

But he never came up.

At 7:30 a.m. Monday, Baldwin reported Strakele's disappearance to the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard and others then searched a 700-square mile area before calling it quits at 5 p.m. Tuesday.

On Wednesday afternoon in a quiet neighborhood in Eastham, Strakele's mother answered a knock at the door.